White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced at a press briefing Tuesday that the White House will determine which news organizations are permitted to cover President Donald Trump up close regularly.
The White House will rotate traditional media outlets and extend coverage access to streaming services.
“The White House press team, in this administration, will determine who gets to enjoy the very privileged and limited access in spaces such as Air Force One and the Oval Office,” Leavitt said at the daily briefing. “There are hundreds of journalists who show up (to press briefings) every single day and are not granted that luxury of flying on Air Force One and asking the president of the United States questions.”
Leavitt said it is not a legal right for news organizations to be able to ask the president questions.
Leavitt said legacy media outlets with a history of covering the White House and significant investments in their coverage will still be included in the rotation.
“The Trump administration has already proven to be the most transparent ever and (Trump) is the most accessible in history,” Leavitt said.
The decision follows a recent suit filed by the Associated Press after being barred from the Oval Office for not updating the AP Stylebook to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
According to AP News, an expert on presidents and the press said barring certain news outlets from covering the executive branch is a “dangerous move for democracy.”
“We stand by our decision to hold the Fake News accountable for their lies, and President Trump will continue to grant an unprecedented level of access to the press,” the White House press team wrote in a Monday statement.
Eddith Dashiell, the director of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, said the First Amendment is meant to ensure individuals can share information freely. She said in order to have a democracy, people need to have access to as much information as possible, rather than selecting it based on the news coverage.
“Basically, the White House is saying ‘You abide by our rules and say what we want you to say or we're going to kick you out, ’” Dashiell said. “That's censorship. That’s prior restraint.”
Dashiell said the White House’s actions appear to be an attempt to intimidate news organizations, which she said threatens free speech.
“The First Amendment doesn't protect you from being disagreed with and doesn’t protect you from being insulting,” Dashiell said. “You combat the speech you disagree with more of your own speech, you don't silence other people.”
